The transportation sector is a major contributor to these twin problems of poor air quality and climate change. In a major polluted city like Beijing, vehicles are now the largest single contributor to ambient particulate matter, reaching 45 percent of total pollutants in 2017. Globally, transportation emission sources contribute up to 23% of average ozone exposure and 12% of average PM2.5 exposure. In 2010, the transport sector was responsible for 23 percent of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. We can address these challenges in the near-term with a two-pronged strategy. First, we can initiate an immediate transition to the cleanest soot-free engines, while developing and implementing in parallel an operational shift to low-carbon, zero-emission, electric-drive engines.

More than 80% of all buses use older diesel engines and high sulfur fuel.

Bus fleets are the right place for cities to start the electric revolution. Buses already provide some of the absolute lowest carbon dioxide emissions per passenger-kilometer. Because more than 80 percent of all buses use older diesel engines and high sulfur fuel, the global bus fleet is responsible for an estimated 15 percent of all particulate matter emissions from on-road transportation. The International Association of Public Transport (UITP) has set a goal to double the market share of public transit by 2025 in support of international climate change targets. While this target is an effective low-carbon policy on its own, which will require a large increase in bus fleets, at a minimum, bus fleets need to quickly shift to soot-free diesel and gas engines to mitigate hazardous outdoor air pollution as investments in bus fleets expand. A better approach is to leapfrog vehicle technology by operating on zero-emission electric engines, which expand the climate mitigation potential of public transit, improve urban air quality, and increase the quality of public transit service.

Fortunately, bus fleets have operational characteristics that favor the introduction of new technologies, particularly electric drive engines, both to reduce risk and enable broader uptake throughout the rest of the fleet. Bus fleets are publicly regulated, they are centrally fueled, and they receive professional servicing and maintenance. Dedicated electric-drive engines are orders of magnitude more efficient than internal combustion diesel or gas engines.

While energy efficiency is paramount, electric buses also provide a better experience for the passenger, as their quiet motors offer a more pleasant ride over their noisy diesel counterparts. They also have fringe benefits for operators. With far lower maintenance costs, electric-drive buses have the potential to deliver lower costs over the lifetime of the vehicle, thus decreasing the costs of providing public transport service. But transit agencies need direct subsidies or changes to their financing models in order to cover the much higher upfront cost of transitioning their fleets to the electric buses. The specifics of that transition, meanwhile, mean that the large-scale leapfrog to zero-emission electric buses presents some questions for fleet operators.

Small, personally-operated mobility options, like bikes and scooters, have highlighted a growing demand in urban areas for convenient, inexpensive alternatives to cars. However, following two high profile fatal crashes involving e-scooters and vehicles in Dallas and Washington, DC, media coverage (and the public) has been heavily focused on the safety of these two-wheelers. Some have even characterized injuries associated with the popularity of scooters as a “public safety crisis”, and a lawsuit was filed on behalf of pedestrians injured by scooters in California, suing scooter companies for negligence. Some cities have moved to restrict maximum scooter speeds, like Washington, DC, which just recently limited speeds to 10 miles per hour.

Bird scooter rider in Washington DC

This is an overreaction that neglects putting scooter safety into perspective. Riding an e-scooter does carry some level of risk, but those risks pale in comparison to those associated with driving a car, or sharing the streets with cars. Despite the increases we’ve seen in cycling, walking, and scooters in many North American cities, the majority of urban roads are designed for vehicles often traveling at high speeds. Road crashes are the leading cause of death among 15-29 year olds worldwide, resulting in over 3,000 deaths on average per day. Until we have streets designed for all modes that actually use them: bikes, scooters, buses, pedestrians, and cars, high numbers of crashes and fatalities will continue to be the norm. Like cyclists, scooter users are often forced to ride in traffic alongside cars or on the sidewalk alongside pedestrians. In fact, capping speeds such as DC has done may actually make scooter riding less safe, since scooters won’t be able to keep pace with cyclists, and will likely be forced out of bike lanes and onto sidewalks where they intrude on pedestrian space.

The Rapid Rise of E-Scooters

Since their launch in late 2017, dockless electric “kick” scooters have sparked a range of public responses from nostalgic glee, to concerns for safety, to outright hatred. After raising significant venture capital funding, Bird was the first electric scooter company to launch and, over the next few months, several existing dockless bikeshare companies began to pivot their business models to focus primarily on e-scooters. At least a half dozen other e-scooter companies emerged during this time.

Uptake of e-scooters in the US happened fast, generating a 3.6% adoption rate (the percentage of people who have tried the service) in less than 12 months, compared to docked bikeshare schemes, which show a 13% adoption rate after eight years. Compared to dockless bikes (excluding pedal assist offerings), dockless scooters have generated, on average, significantly more total trips, as shown in the chart below, and more trips per vehicle per day.

Despite e-scooter companies modeling their business after bikeshare, these trip numbers make the economics of e-scooter operation more viable than dockless bikes, with each scooter paying for itself in a matter of weeks (4-8 by some estimates) instead of months. At this level of return, investors are keenly interested in the success of scooters, and continue to pump billions of dollars of funding into the industry. In fact, after less than one year of operations, Bird became the fastest company ever to reach a valuation of $1 billion (known in the venture capital world as a “unicorn”) – faster than Uber, Facebook, Twitter and other tech giants. Concerns abound, however, about the long-term sustainability (from a profit perspective) of the private scootershare and bikeshare business models, particularly when maintenance, charging, rebalancing and other operating costs associated with high-quality service are taken into account.

By the later half of 2018, scooter companies began eyeing markets outside of the US. Lime operates in six European cities, two cities in New Zealand, and launched in Mexico City in October. A Mexican scooter company, Grin, also provides service in Mexico City. Bird operates in six European cities including London, Madrid and Paris, as well as in Israel.

Investing in infrastructure that protects scooter and cyclists is key to supporting and growing these car alternatives, as is clearly communicating to users safe riding behavior and where scooters are and are not permitted to be ridden. Recognizing that most streets, in their current car-centric form, are inherently unsafe for non-car users, cities must commit to street design that is inclusive and safe for all modes, and they must commit to enforcing these rules. Bike lanes are only useful if you can actually bike in them without the obstacles of parked cars, delivery trucks, and even pedestrians.

Whether you think e-scooters are the best or the worst thing to ever happen to cities, their popularity demonstrates how great the need is for diverse transport options that serve all types of trips. People want to get around cities in ways other than a private car, and city governments should do everything they can to make those options convenient, safe, and connected to each other.

Rwanda is fast on its way to becoming the smart city hub of Africa, with its capital Kigali positioning itself as the continent’s most innovative city, from apps to hail motorcycles to car-free zones. If any one designer sits at the center of that movement, it’s Christian Benimana, the Rwanda Programs Director for MASS Design Group, a non-profit architecture firm that won a Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in 2017.

As a practicing architect, he has worked on designs and plans for hospitals and health clinics in Rwanda, Malawai, and Gabon. As an educator, he teaches at the former Kigali Institute of Science and Technology’s architecture school and chairs the education board of both the Rwanda Institute of Architects and the East African Institute of Architects. As an advocate, he directs the African Design Center, a field-based apprenticeship to grow the ranks of African designers that has been hailed as the Bauhaus of Africa.

ITDP: The theme of MOBILIZE is Making Space for Mobility in Booming Cities. What is your city doing to address mobility in the face of rapid urbanization? What are the challenges in accelerating these solutions?

Christian Benimana: There is a lot going on in Kigali. We are investing in improvements to the road network not only to serve cars but also sidewalks for pedestrians. The city now has a few car-free zones, although those are more for public space than mobility.

Pedestrian area in Kigali, Rwanda | Photo Credit: ITDP Africa

There are plans to streamline transportation services by regulating companies within the transportation industry and integrating payment technology with service platforms. For example, Kigali introduced pre-paid cards to pay for bus fares.

The private sector is also innovating. There are now two companies trying to do something that looks like Uber for motorcycles, a form of transportation used a lot in the city. Their goal is twofold. One, to make it easier to source a motorcycle with a safe, trained driver wherever you are. Two, to regulate prices so that you don’t have to negotiate with the driver.

Unfortunately these solutions are not coming fast enough to keep up with population growth and demand. There is a natural way of resisting change as well — most people like to keep the same things the same way. But I have confidence that as more people pick up these practices, we’re going to turn the trends pretty quickly. I see an opportunity with this younger generation seeking a change, a new generation who depends on mobility much more than their parents did. That trend demands a lot of creativity in solutions. It’s a challenge that could easily turn into an opportunity.

What impact would you like to have in your role in the coming years to address the issue of mobility and rapid urbanization?

CB: I want to get invested in accessibility. Too often, we focus on the word’s narrow definition: how do we build mobility solutions compliant with accessibility requirements for people who are in wheelchair or are blind? We reduce our design thinking to complying with those terms, but we never question whether the design is inclusive of those people. It does not answer how those people interact with and feel about those spaces. What if we build a ramp into a train station but the experience of the train station is miserable? That’s a missed opportunity to question whether the design solutions we come up with are really working for everyone.

Light rail in Addis Ababa | Photo Credit: ITDP Africa

What city projects, anywhere in the world, are most interesting to you right now?

CB: It’s an old example, but Curitiba in Brazil still inspires me for their ability to use a transportation initiative as a way to create public space. In the Netherlands, especially Rotterdam, I am impressed at efforts to formalize cycling. It was a common practice in the city first, and then city leaders came around to providing infrastructure for it. Finally, the new Addis Ababa light rail shows how sub-Saharan Africa can invest in energy-efficient infrastructure, like the new Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

What are you most excited about seeing or learning at MOBILIZE?

CB: I’m most excited to meet with mayors, governors, and city managers. So many ideas that are obvious to designers encounter political hurdles. I’d like to understand what those hurdles are so that designers can see their ideas implemented in the real world.

How can high quality urban design be mainstreamed in the face of rapid urbanization?

CB: I don’t know for sure, but I have an opinion. We’ve seen on the one hand that top-down approaches backfire. On the other hand, we’ve seen that bottom-up approaches are inadequate. But I think the sharing economy offers us some lessons on how to bridge that gap. Government must make the rules and regulations, then allow others to flourish to provide services. It’s a cliche of every urban planning conference, but I think it’s true.

What are some approaches you’ve encountered or worked on that make for a great inclusive and equitable environment?

CB: MASS Design Group entered the architecture competition to redesign Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., the world’s only university for deaf and hard of hearing students. We designed to enhance the other senses, like smell and sight, that the students have, and that approach ends up working well for all users.

This interview is the part of the MOBILIZE Dar es Salaam Speaker Series. In this series, we will feature interviews with speakers and researchers from VREF’s Future Urban Transport where they will discuss their work in sustainable transport and reflect on MOBILIZE Dar es Salaam’s theme: Making Space for Mobility in Booming Cities.

With the urban share of the world’s population expected to increase to 70 percent by 2050, ITDP is introducing a new tool to help governments, city planners, NGOs, and developers make cities more equitable, healthy, safe, and vibrant. The simple solution? Walkability.

The new tool, Pedestrians First: Tools for a Walkable City will facilitate the understanding and the measurement of the features that promote walkability in urban environments around the world at multiple levels. With a better global understanding of walkability, and more consistent and frequent measurement of the walkability of urban environments, decision-makers will be empowered to enact policies that create more walkable urban areas.

“Cities around the world are recognizing how essential walkability is for the access and health of their citizens, and the economic growth of their cities,” Says Joe Chestnut, Research Associate at ITDP and the author of Pedestrians First, “but walkability is not just a sidewalk, it’s a whole system of design and infrastructure. This tool lays out the basics, with checklists, examples, and policy recommendations to create an enjoyable walking environment in any city.”

Using the framework developed by ITDP for their TOD Standard, Pedestrians First breaks down eleven indicators for measuring walkability, with each indicator and their measurement methods discussed in detail.

Liuyun Xiaoqu, Guangzhou, China

WalkwaysThe most basic feature of urban walkability is complete, continuous, and safe walkway networks that provide clear protection from motor vehicles and are accessible to all people, including those with disabilities.

Best Practice: Liuyun Xiaoqu, Guangzhou, ChinaLiuyun Xiaoqu had been a gated residential complex with clogged streets. The development is now a public center of the Tianhe District’s daily life with car-free, walkable corridors and a lively retail hub that serves residents and shoppers alike.

CrosswalksCrosswalks are necessary for safely connecting the walkway network across vehicle traffic and are a critical part of making walkable areas accessible to all people, including those with disabilities.

Visually Active FrontageVisually active frontages promote safety from crime in walkable areas through informal observation and surveillance by people inside buildings. This is often described as “eyes on the street.”

Central Saint Giles, London, UK

Best Practice: Central Saint Giles, London, UKLondon’s Central Saint Giles development has exclusive restaurants, trendy corporate tenants, luxury, and affordable housing units—but very little parking (mostly reserved for people with disabilities). The site is organized around a public plaza and has ample cycle parking as well as its own bike-share station.

Physically Permeable FrontageSidewalks that are lined with continuous ground-floor activity and services have fewer zones of inactivity, thereby creating a more attractive walking environment that is safer from crime.

Shade and ShelterShade and shelter help to make the walkable environment more comfortable and more accessible by protecting pedestrians from heat, rain, and other elements.

Small BlocksSmall blocks reduce trip distances, making walking more convenient for trips.

Vastra Hammen, Malmö, Sweden

Prioritized ConnectivityConnectivity that prioritizes walking over motorized forms of transportation improves walkability by making walking more convenient relative to other modes of transportation.

Best Practice: Vastra Hammen, Malmö, SwedenVastra Hammen has more pedestrian intersection points than vehicle intersection points, making walking the primary, and easiest, method of access.

Complementary UsesA mix of uses reduces the distance between homes and services, thereby improving access. Shorter trips are more likely to be done by walking.

Access to Local ServicesHaving basic services within easy walking distance enables more of these trips to be undertaken on foot.

Driveway DensityAn urban walking environment that minimizes the locations where pedestrian must cross the path of cars leads to a safer and more comfortable walking experience.

Roadway AreaMinimizing the space given to motorized forms of transportation provides more space for walking infrastructure, such as sidewalks, and minimizes car speeds and volumes, leading to a safer, more convenient walking environment.

“There are many places where the car-centric lifestyle is becoming a thing of the past. People increasingly want to have the option to live in a walkable area, and real estate developers are responding to this,” said Chestnut. “This is great progress, but it is important that walkability isn’t a luxury, its an essential component of equity and sustainability, particularly in the rapidly growing cities of the global south. These developments are great examples of the direction in which we’d like to see development going, oriented towards walking and prioritizing people over cars.”

Can a city successfully improve urban transportation with dockless bikeshare? Can they avoid the negative outcomes of dockless bikeshare seen in many places? Our policy brief on Optimizing Dockless Bikeshare for Cities addresses these questions and more.

Over the last decade, bikeshare schemes have become a standard feature in cities around the world, with over 1,000 cities offering at least one bikesharing scheme. City governments have incorporated bikeshare into their transportation and sustainability plans as a low-cost and innovative mobility option for residents. More and more cities are realizing the benefits of integrating this reliable, convenient, safe, and affordable mode into their existing portfolio of transport options.

What’s New about Dockless Bikeshare?In the last couple of years a new approach to bikeshare has emerged: dockless bikeshare. While stationless bikeshare systems, such as Call-a-bike and Nextbike, have existed for years in Europe, they relied heavily on government support, were not reliant on smartphone technology, and never achieved the levels of growth currently underway. The rise of dockless bikeshare, however, comes as a direct response to some of the challenges that traditional station-based bikeshare systems have faced both in terms of convenience for users and the need for public funding. Dockless bikeshare relies heavily, if not exclusively, on smartphone technology and high speed internet, and operators typically charge very low fees on a per ride basis. Supported almost entirely by venture capital funding, dockless bikeshare companies function without government subsidies, allowing them to avoid the often lengthy government procurement processes associated with traditional single-operator, station-based systems.

The current dockless bikeshare system was born in 2014, when five students from Peking University in Beijing founded ofo, a bikeshare company that aimed to serve internal transport needs within the campus. Early in 2016, as the sharing economy, high speed mobile networks, and smartphone technology gained popularity, this new approach to bikeshare began to explode in China.

Compared to traditional bikeshare systems with fixed stations and parking docks, the dockless model allows a rider to leave a bike wherever they decide to complete their trip. There are no fixed stations or parking docks; bicycles are equipped with a self-lock. Riders download a company’s app which directs them to the nearest bicycle that can be unlocked, in most cases, by scanning a QR code with their phone. Some companies, however, also offer the option to unlock a bike by having a pin sent to the user’s smartphone via text, which is then entered onto a keypad or combination lock on the bike.

Dockless bicycles can be unlocked by scanning a QR code located on the bike (as seen in the first two photos), or using a code sent to the user to open either a manual or automatic lock (as seen in the last two photos).

Dockless bicycles can be unlocked by scanning a QR code located on the bike (as seen in the first two photos), or using a code sent to the user to open either a manual or automatic lock (as seen in the last two photos).

An Explosion of Bikes and BikingAs of October 2017, there were more than 70 dockless bikeshare companies in China operating approximately 16 million bikes. More than one third of these bikes, about 5.1 million, are located in just three cities: Beijing (2.4 million), Shanghai (1.5 million), and Chengdu (1.2 million) – all of which have traditional station-based bikeshare systems in place. Often, these quantities of bikes were dropped on city streets within a matter of months. The two private operators with the largest market share, ofo and Mobike, together operate approximately 14 million bikes in more than 165 Chinese cities with users taking more than 60 million trips per day, on average.

The intense influx of bikes has made a difference in mode share. In both Beijing and Shanghai, the number of car trips under five kilometers has fallen for the first time, according to The Report of Traffic Analysis in Major Cities(Quarter 1, 2017, AMAP, an online map provider). The decline corresponds with the introduction of dockless bikeshare. A white paper published by Mobike earlier this year shows total bike ridership – not just shared bikes – has increased significantly among Mobike users. An analysis done by ITDP China also found a shift away from walking since dockless bikeshare launched.

Oversupply and Lack of Regulation Creates a Public NuisanceWhile dockless bikeshare has given consumers a flexible, inexpensive transportation alternative to driving a personal vehicle, it has also yielded negative consequences such as blocked sidewalks and vandalism of the bikes. Oversupply has led to graveyards of bikes, and deep concerns about quality control, maintenance, and management of these systems. According to a common position paper from UITP, the European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) and its Platform for European Bike Sharing and Systems (PEBSS), there is a lack of redistribution efforts by private operators – with bicycles sometimes inundating popular areas in the cities – compounded by a lack of maintenance and comparatively low number of staff to manage the bikes. The initial lack of regulations and massive influxes of venture capital funds allowed these problem to quickly grow.

Oversupplies of dockless bikes clutter sidewalks across cities in China.

Oversupplies of dockless bikes clutter sidewalks across cities in China.

Oversupplies of dockless bikes clutter sidewalks across cities in China.

Lack of Financial Transparency Raises ConcernsIt is not clear how financially viable dockless bikeshare companies will be in the long term. This boom created in China is, in part, due to massive funding from private investors, which has allowed these young companies to not only flood Chinese cities with bikes, but to explore market potential in Europe, Australia, and North America. Earlier in 2017, ofo raised $700 million while Mobike raised $600 million in venture capital funding. Combined, ofo and Mobike have raised $2.2 billion of capital and are valued at more than $4.4 billion.

While dockless bikeshare operators generate revenue from a combination of user deposits, usage fees (which are very low, at about $1 per ride in the US), in-app advertising, and possibly from user data, it is unclear how stable or sustainable this business model is without continued venture capital investment. To that end, after almost two years in operation, ofo and Mobike remain unprofitable. Several of the smaller dockless bikeshare companies have started merging to try to corner more of the market, and even more troubling, Bluegogo, the third largest bikesharing company in China, went bankrupt at the end of November causing 20 million users to lose their deposits.

Despite receiving such large amounts of funding, major operators like ofo and Mobike have not scaled up at nearly the same pace outside of China as they did within the country. This is likely due, in part, to cities raising serious concerns about the bike graveyards, vandalism, and opaque business practices seen in China. While initially, cities in the US and Europe were quick to issue cease and desist orders to companies that dropped bikes without warning, many cities have now begun to enter into dialogues with operators, allowing dockless bikeshare to come into the city under certain terms.

Cities Explore Dockless Bikeshare RegulationsAccording to ITDP China, self-regulation by the market will not fix the problems that have emerged as a result of dockless bikeshare oversupply in China. Governments need to take a more active role in regulating these new systems because, while privately owned and operated, they rely on public infrastructure where there is already conflict over limited space. It is also up to governments to ensure equitable distribution and access to bikeshare as a low-cost transportation mode. In the past six months, the national government and more than 10 cities in China have started implementing policies to guide and regulate dockless bikeshare systems, focusing heavily on bike parking guidelines. Some cities, like Shanghai and Beijing, have even banned any additional shared bikes from current or new operators from entering the market.

As dockless bikeshare expands outside of China, cities are bracing for the impact. In the US, Seattle and San Francisco established permit requirements for private bikeshare operators that include safety, parking, operations, and data sharing as part of a pilot project before allowing the systems to go into full operation. Other cities, such as Washington, DC and Dallas, are taking more of a “wait and see” approach, allowing multiple dockless bikeshare companies to operate during a pilot period with limited regulation, and with the intention of crafting rules based on behaviors observed during the pilot. In Europe, best practices have already begun to emerge from cities like Manchester (UK), where the transportation agency is working closely with Mobike towards city wide cycling and mobility as a service (MAAS) goals. Interestingly, operators themselves are beginning to call on city and national governments to clarify rules governing dockless bikeshare operations so that they can follow a standardized framework across their markets.

ITDP’s RoleAs an organization devoted to sustainable transportation, ITDP believes that shared mobility is critical for not only sustainable transport, but also to achieving transit-oriented instead of vehicle-oriented development and reducing overall car usage and ownership. To that end, we encourage proactive, outcome-oriented policies that are flexible to context, opportunity, and technology changes. For many people, bikeshare can serve as a first introduction to the concept of shared mobility, and despite the current lack of funding needed by dockless bikeshare companies to operate, cities still need to be actively involved in how bikeshare is planned, implemented, and operated within their boundaries.

With this in mind, we’re pleased to kick off this series of blog posts exploring case studies and emerging best practices for how to integrate dockless bikeshare into a city’s sustainable transportation portfolio. Our next post looks at how one city in China, Tianjin, has approached dockless bikeshare regulation. The third post in the series will explore how Guangzhou, China is balancing its traditional station-based bikeshare system with an influx of dockless bikes. Finally, we’ll close out the series with a post presenting policy frameworks for cities open to dockless bikeshare.

Oliver O’Brien is anurbanist and researcher in quantitative geography, at University College London. His specialties include spatial analytics of bikeshare systems across the world, and visualizing socio-economic data such as population demographics.

Introduction

Many major cities around the world are seeing rapid population growth, resulting in increased strain on existing road and public transportation network infrastructure as the numbers on the daily commute swell. Smart mobility – putting data, information, and options in the hands of the travelling public – has been beneficial to many of these cities, allowing better use of fixed resources and more efficient movement around the urban space. Opening up live and static datasets for public consumption can be inexpensive and straightforward relative to the cost of building new physical infrastructure, particularly where sensor information can be easily accessed through existing control systems and carefully specified new “smart city” infrastructure.

London’s Open Data Portal for Transport

Being based in London, I am fortunate to be a data researcher in a city proactively releasing huge amounts of open data. Transport for London (TfL) is the city administration’s transport manager for many modes (e.g. buses, bikeshare, trams, light rail), operator for some (e.g. metro, cable car, major roads) and regulator for others (e.g. taxis, private hire). It has worked with its divisions and private operators to release large amounts of data, both dynamic (updating live, e.g. metro departure boards and traffic cameras) and static (e.g. infrastructure locations, roadworks and safe taxi lists), as open data, for consumption and augmentation by anyone, including commercial concerns who can create potential business with such data.

The data is available through an Open Data Portal section on its website. Live running and timetable information allows multi-modal journey planners (see below) to be easily created and quickly react to disruption and show alternatives. Visualizations of such data can inform both transport planners and the general public as to the use and operation of transport modes, in the long term and short term respectively. Fine-grained temporal capacity information can be used to encourage changes in travel habits. As both a user of TfL’s transit systems, and a visualizer of its data, I have seen first-hand the benefits of the easy access and utilisation of these datasets. I developed TubeHeartbeat, for example, which uses an open dataset from TfL’s portal, on passenger volumes by quarter-hour, to visualize the short but intense commute periods on London’s “Underground” metro network. I also curated an exhibition “Big Data Here”, which projected live running bus information and traffic camera videos, amongst other hyperlocal open data, onto a screen positioned right by the corresponding bus stop and camera itself.

The presence of a reliable, comprehensive, documented, and insightful set of data feeds has resulted in an ecosystem of third-party “apps” being developed for the dominant smartphone platforms (Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android). For example, there are many apps for London’s bikeshare system, most showing a map of availability of bikes or free docking station slots, often augmented with information on nearby cycling infrastructure, a timer/meter indicating the cost of the current hire, etc. Many of the apps adopt a free-at-point-of-use, ad-funded business model, while the more advanced ones cost a small amount to purchase.

A key driver of the success of such eco-systems is the adoption of a stance by the data provider (e.g. the transit authority) that, while there is a value to the data that they release on a free and open basis, the third-party commercial marketplace is better positioned to realize this value, through innovation and different thinking, allowing the transit authority to focus on their core role of running and managing the transport. Additionally, as open data is typically supplied without a service contract, the provision of such data does not place additional support obligations on the operator. A specification on availability of the data, and documentation on its use, is however helpful for rapid commercial adoption. Ultimately, this commercial activity benefits the operator by making mobility smarter, the people using the transit systems, and the economy in general. The best innovations can then typically be incorporated into the operator’s own apps or other information systems. In London’s case, and my anecdotal experience, the app developer community and the final users can be quite vocal where there are data errors or availability outages from the upstream providers.

Development of Standard Open Data Formats and Specifications

There are a number of emerging open data file/syntax formats and data specifications, for smart mobility. In terms of physical file formats, JSON is widely used, with XML also often available. Static open data is often supplied in the CSV or KML file formats, although more sophisticated open data portals combine this with the dynamic data format. For example, TfL’s “Unified” API aims to provide almost all its open data output, dynamic and static, in a consistent JSON form.

GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) was developed by Google as a standard format for transit timetabling information. Once developed, Google released the specification as an open standard, and encouraged public transport authorities to adopt it, so that their timetable information can be incorporated into the global, multi-modal journey planners, such as Google’s own Google Maps. The designation of the format as open doubtless reassures public authorities concerned with adopting a standard for the benefit of a single corporation. Where large public transport authorities already have established formats, such as the Department for Transport’s TransXChange specification in the U.K., third party companies have worked with either side to provide translation between the formats.

Echoing GTFS, the North American Bike Share Association, a consortium of suppliers and operators of bikeshare systems in the US and Canada, has recently developed and published GBFS (General Bikeshare Feed Specification), which aims to show bike and empty docking space information on a standardized and real-time basis, with a view to its future inclusion in multi-modal journey planners in a similar way to GTFS. GBFS is relatively new but has also started to be adopted and published by some bikeshare operators beyond North America. I am hopeful that this standard will be further adopted in the UK and by other providers, likely to happen quickly should Google Maps or another major journey planner incorporate the US data.

Multi-City Users of Open Data for Smarter Mobility

Adopting the above data standards allows multi-city websites and apps to be created and, just as importantly, maintained, with relative ease, with the upstream data provider being responsible for making changes while maintaining consistency through their API. CityMapper and Google Maps are two large users of open data transit feeds. Both offer multi-modal transport planning across a large number of cities across the world.

It is likely that, as tourists and business visitors explore new cities, they are increasingly using the apps already installed on their smartphones, to move around unfamiliar urban environments in an efficient way. A reduction in out-of-country smartphone network data costs, such as is happening across European Union member states, is likely to drive such habits, and be an additional factor in multi-city apps becoming a key component in enabling smart mobility. Certainly, this has been the case for me, I have typically used both CityMapper and Google Maps for recent work trips and holidays in both America and Europe, rather than needing to fill my smartphone screen with apps designed for just one city.

Integrating Transport with Fare Smartcards

One way to encourage “smart” mobility, where different or multiple modes of transport are used as and when different situations require, as suggested by online journey planners, is the adoption of multi-modal, multi-agency fare smartcards. TfL’s fare smartcard is called Oyster Card, and can be used for almost all forms of public transport in London (including on trains not otherwise controlled by TfL) with some notable exceptions, such as the bikeshare system, which was installed on a drop-in basis rather than being engineered to integrate with Oyster, partly due to cost but also due to the need for a sizeable deposit to be secured when hiring an expensive bikeshare bike. Since the introduction of Oyster Card, TfL has continued to innovate with fare smartcards, now allowing regular “contactless” credit and debit cards to be used. This reduces costs for TfL by passing payment processing administration to a range of card providers that compete which each other and so ensure competitive processing costs that equate to less than the overall cost of administering Oyster Card and its associated provider. In the UK, unfortunately, for commercial and logistical reasons, the emerging smartcard standard outside of London is a different system to Oyster Card. However its take-up has been much slower due to less financial incentives for the user. Ultimately, my prediction is that credit/debit cards will supersede both fare smartcards and season tickets, even for season ticket holders, who would instead receive various types period caps across their long-term use.

In Mexico City, the transport mix is diverse, with private minibuses accounting for a sizeable share of the public transport trips within the city and surrounding area. These services are only lightly regulated and do not offer timetabling, running information or route maps. The city’s transport authority has moved to create a more integrated public transport option by augmenting its very popular but overcrowded metro system with high capacity bus rapid transit (BRT) routes, regular buses, and bikeshare (ECOBICI). The BRT, metro, and city buses use a unified payment system, and are extremely well used, becoming intensely busy during commute periods, both above and below ground. There is obvious scope to increase this as more publicly specified transit becomes available in Mexico City in the future (ITDP, 2017). Mexico has a similar state/city incompatibility with smart cards to the UK that likewise could be mitigated with an adoption of “contactless” credit/debit card use.

Visualizing Taxis and Other Transport in New York City

Private taxi journeys continue to be a key part of a city’s successful smart transit mix, as some journeys require the specific capabilities and locations of private vehicles. The taxi and private hire industry has also innovated, alongside its public transport counterparts. For example, the release of open data for hundreds of millions of cab journeys in New York City has resulted in impressive and dramatic visualizations. Taxi journeys on their own have been mapped, but also combined with public transit vehicle movements across many different modes, to indicate efficiently the spatio-temporal nature of movement around Manhattan and other areas in this large, high-density city.

One of the most successful cab companies, Uber, has been key in the increasing use of maps to help people understand their urban space, by providing a route map of each journey taken by an Uber customer, as part of their resulting receipt. I have personally found that such personalized maps help me understand the geographic layout of places I’ve traveled through on Uber (and other similar cab services), potentially also revealing alternative mobility choices.

Mapping Bike Share

Adoption of standards such as GBFS (above), as well as some of the largest bikeshare operating companies running systems across a large number of cities, has meant that creating a map of live bikeshare information, for hundreds of cities worldwide, has been relatively straightforward. I created the Bike Share Map (O’Brien, 2010) to have an at-a-glance map which immediately tells me what I need to know about the state of my local system. I found it easy to expand the map to additional cities thanks to the adoption of such standards mentioned above. At the time of writing, I have therefore been able to add nearly 200 cities to the map – within each city, a complete map of docking stations, with their empty/full status is shown. Replaying the map for the current and previous day shows flows of bikes, be it the multidirectional flow typically present in cities with a high proportion of tourists, or “tidal” flow seen by commuter-dominated system.

A number of city administrations also release, with the arrangement of their corresponding operators, journey information, indicating typically the start and end docking station name/location and time, for each individual journey. Analysis of such information can reveal additional patterns and characteristics of the usage of bike share, and potentially cycling in general, within each system’s area. For example, my map of best-guess routed flows, based on the release of tens of millions of individual bikeshare journeys on Mexico City’s ECOBICI, reveals the concentration of flows down the city’s major city centre artery, Paseo de la Reforma (O’Brien, 2016), indicating the good use of the dedicated bikeshare lanes that were installed there, certainly born out by personal observation. It also highlights other cycle-heavy areas of the center of the city, suggesting possible areas for potential future cycle infrastructure improvements.

Conclusion

This paper has demonstrated some of the benefits of releasing open data on mobility options in major cities, to better inform users of the mobility services, researchers understanding the city and businesses creating value, insights, and tools from such freely given, valuable datasets.

Founded in 1863, the world-famous London Underground, also known as the Tube, may just be the planet’s most iconic subway system, from its “mind the gap” warning to its circular red logo to its storied history as a bomb shelter during World War II. While it transports a hefty 1.37 billion passengers annually, up on street level, the city’s equally iconic red buses – many of them the ever-popular double deckers – host more than 2 billion passenger trips per year.

Enter Simon Lusby, a senior strategist at Transport for London, the British capital’s transit agency. He’s part of the surface transport team, which means even if the Tube is the symbol of London mobility, he is working daily to make sure the bus system is just as much up to snuff.

Lusby spoke to us about how London’s bus system fits with MOBILIZE Santiago‘s theme Just and Inclusive Cities Become the New Normal, what he hopes to learn from the annual MOBILIZE summit in June, and the future for buses in London.

ITDP: The theme of MOBILIZE Santiago is “just and inclusive cities become the new normal”. How does London’s transport system live up to this ideal?Simon Lusby: How we’re planning transport needs to be as inclusive as possible. The new approach to street design (the “Healthy Streets Approach”), for example, is all about inclusion of everyone on the street. Not just one mode, not just healthy people, but actually getting more people out there and making spaces available for everyone.

I think London fits within that quite nicely, with that not only becoming the norm but also being the expectation here. Our bus network is very much at that level. For example, it’s already wheelchair accessible and our passengers are representative of Londoners. So from that point of view, I’d say London could be one of the flagship places where “just and inclusive cities” becomes the norm.

What are you hoping to learn from the city of Santiago’s transportation experience at MOBILIZE?Listening to Santiago, I’m interested in buses. London has a very developed bus network but we need to look to other cities where they’ve had to address many of the challenges we currently face. London is still improving our approach to multi-modal development and that’s what we need to be learning from other cities. That’s what I hope to take away from MOBILIZE – like integration of public transport, particularly with cycling.

What cities around the world are you most interested in today, as in who’s doing the most innovative work in your field?In terms of bus rapid transit, there is actually a lot of it here in the UK, like in Cambridge and Manchester. I’m more interested in a few key things. One, is integrating buses with cycling. Seattle has done that quite well. Another is thinking about how do you stretch corridors together. How do you get bus transit through a really, really dense metropolitan environment? I’m quite keen to gain some more experience from New York on this. I also want our London Underground users to feel like they are still part of the same public transport network and have options on how they can travel when they transfer to a bus.

You’ve mentioned buses a number of times. How has Transport for London been so successful increasing public transit mode share, especially on buses?Without buses, there are areas where one has very little public transport. But now there are bus routes everywhere. 95% of households live within 4oo meters of a bus service. So that goes to show that this network we’re covering is more abundant than people had ever thought.

We’ve got control of the bus network and some of the road space, which has been central. Starting in about 2000, Transport for London put in a lot of buses and that made the services far more reliable. Then in 2003 came the congestion charge. People have to pay to enter the center city, which means that there are very few private cars in the city and that helped the bus network again hugely. Simple things like contactless payment – the Oyster card – made it far more seamless between using the Tube and using the bus.

You know the bus is coming during the day. You don’t have to mess around with schedules or anything like that. There’s probably going to be a bus arriving in a few minutes. Unfortunately though, that high frequency costs money and we still have to continue to adapt our network to support the Tube and the new Elizabeth line. It’s an underground train line between Heathrow and east London via Canary Wharf. It will become the city’s main line, carrying twice the capacity of the other lines. But you can’t build one of these every year. It takes a lot of time and money.

With flashy new infrastructure like the Elizabeth line coming in, what is the importance of a bus-based transport for a city that has such an extensive subway system?That goes back to the original question of inclusiveness. If you pulled out the buses, which are completely wheelchair accessible, you’re no longer inclusive. So we tend to maintain bus lines even directly above Tube lines because you need that accessibility and people rely on it. When you think about how many different layers there are in the Tube, going deep down into the stations, for some people you don’t want to be going up and down all that.

How does Transport for London collect data on bus ridership?We have our pay as you go fare system, which is a tap-on, tap-off system that uses Contactless bank cards or the Oyster card to understand customers journeys. That means we don’t know the Tube route you took, we just know what station you went in and what station you come out of. From that travel data we can then understand connections like bus to Tube to bus. We’ve also got iBus which allows us to check the speed of the bus. We can then look at the speed of that service for any delays, as well as gaps between service that are impacting on ridership. If something goes wrong on the Tube, like delays, we can calculate fairly accurately how many people will be affected. So we try to take the knowledge we’ve learned on the Tube and apply it to bus.

This interview is the part of the MOBILIZE Santiago Speaker Series. In this series, we will feature interviews with researchers from VREF’s Future Urban Transport where will discuss their work in sustainable transport and reflecting on MOBILIZE Santiago’s theme: Just and Inclusive Cities Become the New Normal. To learn more about MOBILIZE Santiago and how you can register to attend the summit in Chile, visit mobilizesummit.org.

Ramon Cruz from ITDP will be presenting at a Bonn Climate Conference side event titled “Strengthening Leadership on Low-Carbon Transport to Deliver Long Term Climate Goals“. This side event, organized by ITDP and ZEW, presents a vision for the decarbonization of the transport sector developed by the Paris Process on Mobility and Climate (PPMC), which counts with more than 200 organizations working on mobility and climate. It will highlight strategies for reaching the ambitious goals set out by the Paris Agreement (including the Three Revolutions Scenario), shed light on the economics of carbon pricing, and discuss with negotiators their national action plans to tackle sustainable mobility challenges.

It will take place on Tuesday, May 16th from 3-4:30pm CEST at the World Conference Centre Bonn in Berlin. You can watch a livestream of the event on YouTube Live here and/or catch updates on Twitter by following ITDP & Ramon Cruz.

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